Thursday, December 13, 2012

STOCKHOLM,
Sweden – Windows of time are precious on these trips. They happen usually at
the ends of days, well after dark or before dawn. Here, in Sweden, in blustery mid-December,
running in daylight was unlikely to happen no matter the schedule: It’s dark
for more than 18 hours every day; the sun sets about 2:30 p.m.

So when
we checked into our hotel at 5 p.m., with a few free hours ahead, the first
thing I did was unpack my running shoes and winter gear and asked the hotel clerk
for a route.He kindly gave me a map and
showed me the way to run onto one of the city’s many islands, connected by
bridges to the mainland.

As I
prepared to go, a few colleagues in the lobby asked why I would bother. Two
days earlier, nearly two feet of snow dropped on Stockholm, and what was left
was four to six inches of mushed-up semi-packed snow, the kind where you slide
back half a step with every stride. “Wouldn’t you get as much exercise if you
just walked a few blocks?” one person asked.

Actually,
no. The hotel was near the sea, and so I ran to it, and then kept the sea on my
right (a variation of the Vermonter advice of not getting lost in the woods:
Keep the river on your right). It was below freezing, a light snow was falling,
and many people were walking along the path under street lights. There were a
few runners and even a biker, who kept a certain pace in order not to topple.

I was
thrilled to be in Stockholm, running in snow on snow, and stealing a view of
the city in my window of time. I turned right on a bridge that crossed a canal,
and then, less than a mile from the city center, found myself running alone on
a snowy sidewalk.

It felt
like I was back in a small New England town – the snow lightly falling, street
lamps illuminating the snowflakes, emptiness ahead, silence, Christmas lights
on houses, candles lighting windows, shadows of figures moving from room to
room. I passed a young couple walking home. In their wake, they were tugging a
bundled-up one- or two-year-old in a red sled. The bearded man and long-haired
woman talked excitedly; the child in a snowsuit in back sat mute, eyes wide
looking at me. I blurred past her, waving but getting no reply.

I ran on
a plowed path in a city park lined with tall trees (the benches had humps of
snow, no one had sat on them since the storm); to a ferry landing, where a sign
said a ferry arrived every 24 minutes to take people somewhere in Stockholm;
and then back toward my hotel.

One trick
in running in a foreign place is not only to find a route, but also to find the
route home. So when I left my hotel, I looked around and found my landmark: a billboard
advertising “Dirty Dancing.” It was in pink neon. On the return, I could see it
from a quarter-mile away, and I shuffled to the hotel, Dirty Dancing a hot-pink
beacon.

I checked my watch: just 35 minutes.
But it seemed like I had escaped for hours and had entered a hushed Nordic
world during the Christmas month. My cheeks were cold. My hat was white. I
stretched next to my hotel door, and I felt the tightness ease from my calves.
It felt good to run in the dark, in cold, in Stockholm.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

BEIJING
– I didn’t expect to run here. I expected the smog to make running counterproductive.
I expected work schedules wouldn’t allow it. And I expected that I wouldn’t be
interested – not in an intensely urban, polluted city.

I was
wrong on all accounts. As I set out one morning late last week at 6 a.m., the
air was cold and clear. It was so clear that I looked up and saw a full moon.

The
moon would lead me, I thought. Where? How about Tiananmen Square, the third
largest city square in the world and infamous as the site where the government violently
quashed the pro-democracy movement in 1989, some 23 years ago.

I started down a sidewalk
illuminated by street lights and right away I saw a highway sign: Tiananmen
Square 4.5 kilometers. Doable, I thought – as long as I didn’t get lost.

The temperature was 20 degrees Fahrenheit,
and the wind blew at my back – a worrisome sign because it meant I’d be running
into it on my return. But I was so excited about the thought of running in
Beijing, running to Tiananmen Square, just running in general, that I blocked
it out.

Other obstacles, though, appeared quickly.
I immediately came upon major intersections; I learned that cars turn right on
red here, along with multiple motorcycles and bicycles outfitted with tiny
motors. I stepped out at one intersection and one of the swift soundless bicycles
almost ran over my toes, causing me to leap back. One lesson learned in Beijing
traffic: don’t depend on your ears. Three kilometers into the run, the wide
sidewalk became full of large groups who wore red hats and carried red flags.
Was I running into a demonstration of sorts? Why were so many walking in the
cold in the dark?

I kept going, dodging the groups,
trying not to trip, watching out for the bicycles, all under the full moon,
which was sinking lower, still bright. And then I arrived at the Square, the
sidewalk opening up to a walking boulevard, with Tiananmen to left.

The Square is treeless, a vast
expanse of stone. It sits between two
ancient, massive gates: the Tiananmen to the north and the Qianmen to the south,
and alongside it are the Great Hall of the People and the National Museum of
China. I ran up to a giant portrait of Mao.

Traffic from the highway blocked my way to the Square. I asked two Chinese
military guards for directions, using various types of pantomime, but they
shyly turned away. I was the only Westerner in sight – the only runner as well
– and so I had to find my own way. It wasn’t hard. Just a block away was an
underground tunnel and the Chinese wearing red hats were all going that way.

After the tunnel, I crossed a
smaller road to get to the Square, where I ran to a large group of people who
were standing in front of a line of soldiers. Others were running toward us. I
asked several people if they spoke English and found none. What was going on?

A police car with a loudspeaker approached.
It said something in Chinese and then followed in English: “Welcome to the
national flag-raising ceremony,” it said. “Please stand back. Do not push. Stay
calm.”

Alongside more than 1,000 Chinese
people, I had arrived in time to watch the country’s official raising of the
flag, which I later found out happens every morning at sunrise. I had to get
going, though. It was almost 7 a.m., and my first meeting started at 8.

So I retraced my steps, crossing
the road, taking the tunnel, and then running back along the sidewalk. The
sinking moon was at my back, the sky ahead turned orange, and I felt warm and
excited. I had run to Tiananmen Square.
I picked up the pace.